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The head of Public Health Wales has admitted she was unaware of Wales' target to do 9,000 coronavirus tests per day by the end of April.

Tracey Cooper, the chief executive of Public Health Wales (PHW), told the Senedd's health committee she was "not familiar" with Welsh ministers' original aim to carry out 9,000 daily coronavirus tests.

Dr Cooper told MSs that Wales was now receiving 19% of Roche's UK allocation - around 900 tests a day.

(Image: Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament)

Her revelation came as part of a response to Plaid Cymru member Rhun ap Iorwerth's question about whether PHW was part of a group who advised Welsh Government that 9,000 tests was a feasible option.

Conservative member Angela Burns said: "I am genuinely shocked that PHW is saying publicly and on the record that they are not aware of the government's commitment that there is an ambition for 9,000 testing capacity by the end of April.

"I am shocked. You are the chief executive of PHW and that was a major, major Government commitment."

But according to Dr Cooper, PHW were not consulted on this target and never indicated that such a testing regime could ever be met.

Dr Cooper said she was not aware of the planned trajectory and difficulties in the "global supply chain" had severely hampered efforts to get testing in place.

(Image: Andrew James)

Dr Quentin Sandifer, executive director of Public Health Services and Medical Director at PHW, said they had currently set a capacity at 2,350 and this was growing.

He said it was important not to focus on a single number but from his professional point of view: "We need the right number of tests to achieve our strategic objectives that we have set at that point in the pandemic."

Other countries did not pursue a target test number, but pursued a test strategy instead, he added.

Dr Sandifer said it expected to need t in the range of 7,500 to 17,000 daily tests a day to make contact tracing work when lockdown is lifted but that 10,000 tests a day would be a "realistic requirement".

Dr Cooper told MSs that she expected Wales to soon have "comparable capacity" to England and Scotland based on population size.

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Talking about the collapsed Covid-19 testing deal with Roche, Dr Cooper said: "We were in discussions with Roche and that's the understanding we had through discussions and email correspondence. That was in advance of it being brought into the UK allocation, which has happened with a couple of companies."

It was after the UK Government stepped in that this allocation became a full 5,000 tests per day for the UK and not just Wales, she admitted.

Plaid Cymru Shadow Health Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, MS, said: "Public Health Wales’ confirmation today that the UK Government did step in to take 5,000 tests a day off Wales and to subsume them into the general testing pool raises serious and fundamental questions about how UK Government views Wales. What we’ve seeing is the gazumping of a deal negotiated for the benefit of the Welsh public, and Labour Ministers were too weak to stand up to UK Government.

"Now we still have days where fewer than 1,000 a day are tested, compared with the 9,000 target promised by the Welsh Government. In a separate twist to a remarkable Health Committee meeting, the startling admission to me by Public Health Wales’s Chief Executive that she wasn’t aware of the 9,000 a day target also begs the question, what on earth is going on with Welsh Government’s handling of this crisis?"